Get it with an extended warranty, otherwise it's great!

Author's Rating:

Pros: CarlZeiss glass lens, 5MP, records to CD-RW, reasonable lag time, large LCD viewfinder

Cons: CD only - no removable media, hard to see LCD outdoors, redeye

The Bottom Line: 
Get it with an extended warranty and you've got a great digital camera. It's the next best thing to a digital SLR camera, at half the price!

Author's Review
For a digital camera, I would never buy online no matter how low the price was. Call me a luddite. :-) I purchased mine from Best Buy.

I was looking at all the camera and nearly bought an open-box Kodak LS443 (4 MP) for $349 when I saw the Sony Mavica.

It's got the perfect feel for a camera (no matter how many MPs, a small camera looks and feels like cheap toy store junk). But this one has to feel solid because it's got precision parts inside (the CD recording head.)

You can burn to CD and directly play the CD on your computer (only when 'finalized' though). No need to diddle about with USB connections and so on, unless you want to connect it up (which you might, especially for un-finalized RW discs.

It's got all the features of an SLR (with the exception of a removable lens). Manual focus is a big plus for me, as I like to determine what I want in focus. It has a GREAT autofocus feature as well that blew me away, but I'll rarely use it! And the Carl Zeiss is reputed to be one of the best in the industry, compared to the Nikkor lens. And it's all glass (YES!!!), meaning it'll last longer and won't discolor after a couple of years. (plastic lenses, please perish the thought - don't embrace it!)

Its macro zoom function beats the snot out of my old SLR camera's (Minolta Maxxum 300si). You can have the lens literally 2mm away from the picture and it'll grab a sharp image.

Pictures are very sharp, and so far there's little blooming (occurs with sharply contrasted scenes; the light casts a purple hue along the edge into the black area). Sony has their own "anti-blooming" technology and it works nice in this camera!

They had an open box model for $614, plus $99 for a 4 year warranty including all cleanings and replacement batteries.

What bugs me is this: CD-RW write head elements burn out after a time. That's why I got the warranty because otherwise it would be very expensive to have replaced. Worse, Sony did not bother to include a second form of media (even their propriaty Memory Stick would have been nice) I'm also paranoid the CD mechanism would get knocked out of sync if I accidentially dropped the camera. As there's no secondary form of image storage on this thing... Get that warranty or risk having an expensive paperweight!

Also, other less expensive cameras have support for ISO 50 and 800. This camera limits you to 100, 200, and 400.

Also, as this thing writes directly to disc (a small buffer is included), post-click lag time can be a problem - especially if you write directly using no-compression TIFF format. Pre-click shutter lag isn't bad at all.

Redeye seems to be an occasional problem, but I only do landscape work anyway and any digital darkroom software will have a competent redeye removing scheme.

Also considering I bought this at Best Buy, I was miffed to discover they don't sell CD-RW minidiscs. (insert eyes-rolling-upward motion here!) Nor does Radio Shack or Officemax carry RW minidiscs (ugh), though I'm going to try CompUSA tomorrow. CompUSA is usually very good with stocking "atypical and geek-friendly stuff". Glad I'm a geek! If not, I'll order online, but you'd think stores who sell the camera would sell the ideal media for it. CD-RWs can last a long time and are perfect for digital cameras!

So, despite the almost unforgivable oversight of no secondary storage medium (not even their propriatary "memory stick"), I'd still recommend this camera. The good readily outweigh the bad, you'll see what I mean! But I repeat, DO get an extended warranty. Labor warranty on this thing is only 90 days. Parts is just 1 year. That's pitiful for something like CD-R/W technology.